Film Summary
For this paper, we will be focusing specifically on the first season of American Horror Story. The series, created by Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy, as a whole is an “anthology series centering on different characters and locations, including a house with a murderous past, an insane asylum, a witch coven, a freak show circus, a haunted hotel, a possessed farmhouse, a cult, the apocalypse, and a slasher summer camp” (IMDB). The first season, titled “Murder House”, is about a family that moves into a house with a murderous past and is infested with ghosts- one being Tate, a main character in the show. However, the show overall is very psychological and delves deeply into mental illnesses. One season of American Horror Story is even called “Asylum” and takes place in a mental institution in the 50’s. Although the show generally avoids the cliches of mental illness, there are some worrisome scenes in the first episode. First, one of the main characters, Tate (pictured in one of the GIFs) literally tells Violet how to commit suicide. After attending a therapy session in the Murder House he walks in on Violet in the bathroom cutting herself with a razor blade. He then says, “You’re doing it wrong. If you’re trying to kill yourself, cut vertically- they can’t stitch that up... If you’re trying to kill yourself, you might also try locking the door.” That is the first interaction between these two characters who eventually fall in love with each other. In fact, Tate actually tells his therapist that he met a girl he is interested in based off of this first interaction of her harming herself and him telling her how to harm herself permanently. The second interaction is even stranger- they bond over the scars on their wrists from self-harm as if it’s cool and trendy. As a depressed teenage girl, this scene is deeply imprinted in my mind; Maybe it’s because I’ve seen the season multiple times, or because I’ve seen GIFs from this scene on Tumblr a countless amount of times, but I literally retained this information like it would be valuable to me at some point. Not only is Tate telling Violet how to commit suicide, but the writers of American Horror Story a re also telling their viewers. So, what else are the writers telling their viewers? In many films and shows, there seems to be a pattern of interjecting love or relationships into a narrative where there really isn’t logical room for it, as in Girl, Interrupted. In that instance, the film suggests that all you need is love to conquer mental illness. In American Horror Story, however, the writers used Tate and Violet’s relationship and the theme of love to say something much darker. As their relationship progresses throughout the season, Violet and Tate decide they want to be together forever. On the fandom side of things, viewers loved this, which I found really interesting based on who they are as characters and who they are as a couple in the show. We already know about Violet and her history of depression, but what about Tate, played by Evan Peters? Tate is a self-proclaimed homicidal maniac who thinks the world, and people, are filthy and disgusting. He even goes so far to say in therapy that by him killing someone, he would be taking care of the problem. The very first time we meet Tate, he fantasizes about being a high school shooter, yet viewers and Tumblr users who were fans of the show praised him, empathized with him and supported him. The online community of AHS fans “shipped” him and Violet, meaning they were fans of their romantic relationship, even when things got really dark. As their relationship progresses, Tate wants Violet to kill herself so that they can be together forever- and spoiler alert, she does, which leads me to the first GIF:
GIF Analysis
Stripped of all context, this GIF (Figure 4.1) is a very fast moving, flickering black and white sequence of what looks like a young girl, crying and washing prescription pills down with alcohol. Most likely, this is a suicide attempt. With the help of the hashtags that accompany the GIF, such as #suicidal and #overdose, we see that this is in fact a suicidal teenage girl attempting to overdose. This is also the first GIF that we have looked at that is not assisted by any text or subtitles- What we see is what we get, and it’s a dark message that is, yet again, idealized by the online community. We can also take note that yet again, we have a black and white GIF. Black and white color grading in film is sometimes used to render an increased emotional impact on the viewer. However, this was a choice made by the GIF creator and not anyone involved with the television series the content is derived from. The GIF creator made a conscious decision to go with a black and white filter over this GIF, most likely in order to evoke a deep emotional state in the users who interact with the GIF. In some ways, these creations function as propaganda- Propaganda supporting and idealizing a level of sadness that a young girl felt so deeply, she felt she needed to die.
This GIF is from a sequence where Violet commits suicide due to her depression and other mental illnesses. The interesting part is that her father in the show is a therapist, so it’s almost like the show was commenting on how someone so depressed can easily be looked over, even when living under the same roof as a mental health professional. Nevertheless though, the contents of the GIF are strictly highlighting the girl’s suicidal tendencies. This show, along with Skins UK, were both a huge reason as to why I got involved and interested in this subject matter. As a teenager scrolling on Tumblr and creating my own, digital mood board, I came across many GIFs like this derived from the American Horror Story series, and especially Season 1 of the show. The way I saw my online community interacting with this type of media was shocking. I would see comments on similar types of GIFs like, “I LOVE THIS SHOW” or “I LOVE VIOLET HARMON”, even though she is a tragically sad and suicidal character in the show. It made me pose the question... Why are we perpetuating the idea of being sad? Why is it cool to be sad? To hurt yourself? I came up with two possible answers to these questions. First, it’s an attempt to express and identify with one’s self as a member of the mentally ill community. Secondly, the people who interact with this type of content don’t truly want to get better, or at least not yet. As someone who has personally undergone many cycles of depression throughout my life, I can understand this; There is a safety in not getting better. It’s easier and it hurts less when you accept the way you feel and don’t think about the alternative, and change in general is difficult. My therapist once told me, “You listen to sad music when you’re happy because you don’t really want to be happy... You aren’t comfortable being happy yet, because you were sad for so long...” I think that applies here, too. In the same way that one would turn on a sad song to feel sad, one might reblog a generally sad GIF. Although this may be hard to grasp if you have not been clinically depressed or mentally ill, for some, sadness is safety, and in a way, the GIF serves as both the thing that is keeping you from being happy, but also keeping you, temporarily, safe and comfortable in your sadness. The next GIF we will analyze is similar in it’s message:
This GIF (Figure 4.2), stripped of all context, appears to be a quickly moving image of a character who is making a hand signal to shoot himself in the head. The GIF has no text, and no added color grading, meaning there is nothing else for Tumblr users to relate to other than the act of killing oneself. We can also see that the character is moving his mouth and appears to be saying “pew” or “boom”, as if he is trying to mimic the sound of a gun going off. At the same time, we see that he isn’t scared but fearless, because he isn’t begging for his life, but rather welcoming the idea of death. Once again, we have a GIF that does nothing but emphasize suicidal tendencies, and by reblogging it, users are emphasizing it too.
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